Rehearsal
by Countess Verona Dracula
Summary: [OneShot] The first rehearsal is always the hardest and Jack and Stephen are no exception. [Bookverse]


Disclaimer- If I owned them, I wouldn't be sitting around here at my laptop, now would I? As it is, they belong rightfully to Patrick O'Brian. I promise to have them home and mostly sober in the morning.

A/N-- After much deliberation, I have finally decided to write this little oneshot. It popped into my head during orchestra one day and it still hasn't quite left. Unfortunately, it is in no way related to my Saltwater series (although if you enjoy this, do check out _Saltwater for Tears_ and _Saltwater for Blood_, which have a sequel in the works). Enjoy!

Set at the very beginning of _Master and Commander_, the first book in the Aubrey-Maturin series, shortly after Stephen and Jack first met. The concerto they're playing is the Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216: 3rd movement by W.A. Mozart. It's track #3 on the M&C soundtrack.

_For the Tesoro High School Music Department, for everything we put up with and for the music we make in spite of it. Particularly for the String Ensemble, because it has to put up with me.

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_Rehearsal_

Jack Aubrey's fingers were worn to the bone with exhaustion; he was sure they would bleed at any moment. Yet a lifetime at sea had not been without its adaptations and he was well accustomed to pain. And this was a sweet pain.

He started and cursed, the bow of his violin skipping off the wrong string and breaking his beautiful 16th note run. Mozart was surely cringing somewhere. The urge to take up his violin had caught Jack at an awkward moment, and he had not had the chance to remove his coat before he began to play. The weight of the epaulette - the treasured sign that he was a captain (a captain with a command!) at last - on his shoulder continually confused his playing.

He lowered the violin to his knee and flexed his left hand, eyed the tips. They were entirely blackened by the ebony fingerboard but for the small ridges formed where they met the string; there they were red with the strain of an hour of music. Now that the violin was no longer up against his neck, an awkward position as intimate as breathing, he didn't think he could bear to lift it again. He was remembering the musical recital he'd attended only days before, the night he discovered he'd been promoted to master and commander and given command of the 14 gun sloop HMS _Sophie_. The musicians had smiled and laughed at each other as they packed up their instruments, recalling the nuances of the performance. All the parts they'd worried for had flown by, and all the easy parts had come out wrong.

Jack Aubrey had never played with other musicians. A head carpenter had taught him to play when he was a young midshipman, but once he'd learned enough to join them in their nightly concerts the captain deemed it 'improper' for him to play with the other crewmembers. He'd managed professional lessons back in England. Once or twice he'd managed to form a trio or a quartet among his fellow officers. Yet he never had what those musicians had - a sense of community, of true ensemble, like a seasoned ship's crew. There were days when the loneliness of endless solos nearly took his heart for music out of him entirely, the same way the loneliness of the longed-for quarterdeck had taken some of the joy out of his promotion.

Jack removed his coat at last, reveling in the weightlessness. There was no worth to fill it with - not yet. His captaincy rang as emptily as his violin did when he set it down on the nearby desk.

_Give it time, Jack._ He chastised himself. _Constantinople wasn't built in a day. _

He was just settling onto his cot when the knock resounded. His senses strained out instantly - was something wrong with the _Sophie_? Dear old girl, she was sailing as smoothly as ever she could. Someone must've sighted sail. His blood raced a little. Action was the thing for a man who was low. Action could mean distinction, an end to this womanish hollowness.

Jack had to work to hide his disappointment when he saw it was only the new surgeon, Stephen Maturin, standing at his door.

"I hope I am not intruding," He said without batting his pale eyes at Jack's crestfallen expression.

"Not at all. Is something the matter?"

"I heard a fine concerto a moment ago. The problem was it sounded like a terribly lonely violin."

After a slow moment, Jack noticed that the doctor's violincello hung shyly from his hand.

"By all means, come in," He stuttered, standing aside. "I should be most glad of the company."

Jack felt strangely uncertain, contemplating the slender doctor before him as he took in the great cabin with a keen observer's eye. Of course he'd known that Maturin played the 'cello. They'd met at the musical performance he'd just been musing on. After that unfavorable experience, the discovery that they shared a love of music was all that had prevented outright violence between them. But Jack found the surgeon an odd man, a little cold and certainly unworldly. He wondered what sort of musician that would make him.

"I'm afraid I have only the violin part for that concerto. Should you like to go back to the orlop and fetch some of your own music?"

"It's no matter. That concerto is one of Mozart's most sublime works, and I have long since committed it to memory."

The captain lifted his violin once more and tested the strings, finding that they still rang true. The surgeon settled his 'cello between his legs and began his own tuning.

"May I have your A, Captain?" He asked.

"I should've offered it immediately. I'm unused to playing with others," Jack lowered his hand from the violin's neck and flexed it once or twice as he gave the surgeon the pitch he needed. He couldn't pinpoint the source of his nervousness, but he felt as if he was caught in a riptide and he wasn't sure where it was about to take him - only that it could leave him forever changed.

Jack jumped ahead when he started, forgetting the 'cello solo at the beginning. They mumbled apologies and stutter-started many more times before they began correctly. The measures before his entrance were torturous - Maturin's pizzicato sounded too stiff by a measure. Jack laughed quietly at his own pun and then joined in. Within moments, he was nearly a measure ahead of the 'cello's pizz. He tried to slow when the surgeon tried to catch up; in the end, they both lowered their bows.

"Forgive me, I've always taken it faster than it's written."

"I could see why. The faster it moves, the jauntier it sounds. But consider it at the tempo it was written, with the 'cello part, and I think you'll find Mozart knew what he was writing."

Jack nodded in agreement and raised his bow once more. For the first time, he met the surgeon's eyes as they played. He followed the deep ruminations of the 'cello and let it set the pace. He found the piece's frantic pace relaxing, breathing more evenly. He found that he had been the stiff one. Maturin was utterly relaxed, at home with himself and with the piece he was playing - and with the violinist whose notes sounded above his.

The slow section ended and now the surgeon met the captain's eyes in the brief rest. Jack flew off into the allegro and Maturin followed without hesitation. They both stumbled over the parts where they were meant to sound in unison, and Jack was the slightest bit off when he reached his 16th note run. Once again, his bow brushed the wrong string and he went spiraling off the page.

It was then that Doctor Maturin did something none of his other friends had ever done. He blinked once or twice, and then followed him into the variation. Astonished, Jack took the pace even faster. Maturin matched him again, the first smile Jack had ever seen gracing his face. His hand slid down the length of the 'cello's neck, higher, matching him, all but sensing the thoughts in his head.

They moved towards what they knew would be the end with one mind, until at last they were back to the notes on the page. But as they slowed, Jack couldn't resist one more variation. This time, Maturin was not ready to follow. Once more, Jack was trying to slow at the same time that the surgeon was trying to catch up. In the end, they barely made it to the resolving note.

"I must say I've never heard Mozart played quite like that," Maturin's voice was edged with laughter.

"Neither have I. But it will get better, mark my words, Doctor. Constantinople wasn't built in a day."

Maturin was oddly silent now, his brows furrowed in concentration. "I believe you mean _Rome_ wasn't built in a day, Captain."

"Is that so? I always thought it was Constantinople," Jack was suffused with a strange glow of happiness. No one had dared correct him on anything since his promotion, even when he deliberately called a bowline a sheepshank to see what the midshipmen would do.

The silence after their concerto stretched thin and uncomfortable over them. Men moved around on the deck above them, their feet stomping heavily in time to a song only they could hear.

"I used to know a tune or two that they could dance to," Jack hesitated now. He didn't want to be caught by the lee. "Perhaps later I could whip up a 'cello part for them...?"

"I would enjoy that, Captain. It is a lonely business, playing alone day in and day out."

Jack's smile overtook his face. "I believe you mean Jack, Doctor."

"And you must mean Stephen."

"Yes, quite so."

The silence was awkward no longer - just patient. Jack found them a bottle of spirits and they sat by the great cabin's windows, watching the lantern light on the wine-dark sea. Jack thought briefly that this particular phrase might apply only to the Mediterranean. He made note to ask Stephen later. There would be a Later.

"I ought to be sleeping," The surgeon said after some time had passed. "And so should you. Sleep is the greatest of all healers. But perhaps - one more song?"

"You have read my mind exactly, Stephen. I think I have a Boccherini duet here- do you like him?"

"I worship that man. Tell me, have you his Notturna...?"

They pawed through his music like men who've been at sea for years and have just been brought the post. They argued endlessly over which piece to play - over the merits of this composer and the deficits of that one. When they did finally settle, it was just as awkward to start as before. This tempo or that, is the key easy enough for you or shall we try and change it? They started and stopped a dozen times. They grumbled and retuned their instruments and cursed the sticky heat. 'Cello and violin waited patiently until they sounded at last in unison once more. Their sounds faded only to hear the sound of the watch changing - bells echoing endlessly over the open sea  
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"Tell me, what time does that signify?" Stephen asked.

"Midnight."

"A new day already. And if we are all determined to awaken as early as possible and behave as if it is judgment day, I must seek my hammock now."

The doctor loosened his bow and hung it from one of his 'cello's tuning pegs. He pulled in the endpin and headed towards the door. Before he could take his leave, Jack spoke again.

"Are you certain there isn't another song in you?"

Stephen hesitated; his 'cello swung from his hand, angling back towards the chair they'd pulled out and the music still sitting on the stand.

"There is," He replied at last. "But if we don't save it now, what will be left for tomorrow?"

Even Jack couldn't argue with that. As difficult as it had been, as awkward and strange as it had felt, there was little he wouldn't give to repeat this night.

Jack collapsed onto his cot and felt sleep pulling him down within moments. The emptiness that had nagged him before Stephen entered was nothing but a vague memory. Everything would get better from here. Today had only been a rehearsal.

His eyes closed on the sight of his coat slung over a chair, its epaulette winking in the candlelight, and of his violin on the desk, waiting patiently for the next one.

_Fin_

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A/N-- Well, there you have it! Drop a line and let me know what you thought. 


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